“Which brings to mind old Mulroney. Had you any success with that man-Lucas was it?-who was to get rid of him?”

“He’s on his way out. We have managed to get him a rung up on the ecclesiastical ladder in a nice rich town, where he can’t do much harm. He’ll never dare to scare the wits out of a bunch of fat squires with his sermons and Bible readings. Let him herd as many people as he can to swell his church attendance and give him a good record. He’ll concentrate his accounting skills on getting some stained glass windows and an organ for St. Martin’s and have something to show for his efforts.”

“You mentioned your home would be in Hampshire so you could keep an eye on it. Do you plan to return to Longbourne Abbey soon then?”

“Yes, after the Season."

“Oh.” She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

"I'll be in London a good deal, of course. I plan to take my seat in the House.”

"This sounds like a new Lord Dammler about to emerge. What of the poet?”

“He’ll have to keep his nose to the grindstone to support his women. I refer to my charity girls,” he explained with a lift of the eyebrow.

“My, with all your women of one sort or another, you’ll be busy.”

“I’ll still find time for you,” he said with a smile. “You’ll have to come to visit me at Longbourne Abbey some time.”

Comforted with this promise, she accepted the inevitable.

Chapter 8

Mr. Seville had called on Miss Mallow two days after the ball and found her out with Dammler. When he returned two days later, he found her at home and asked her to drive out in the park with him. It was not the same exciting adventure as going out with Dammler, but it was better than sitting home with Clarence, and her escort exerted himself to be entertaining. He was not a serious man; Prudence had his measure within a quarter of an hour. He was a man of the world. His conversation was of balls and the ton, of horses and fashion. He didn’t seem to think a lady capable of discussing more weighty matters, or perhaps he was incapable of it himself, but he was amusing.

“Have you heard the latest on dit about Clarence and the Princess?” he asked, leaning closer to her.

How very odd that she should know him to be referring to the Duke of Clarence, and either of two other princesses not of English royalty.

“Lieven or Esterhazy?” she asked, with a feeling of being very much in on things.

“Lieven,” he replied, not finding her answer remarkable, “was being shown to her carriage at the Pavilion t’other night by Billie, and what must the old slice do but pop in on top of her and try to make love to her.”

“He is a courageous man,” she answered, laughing at the picture called up by this incongruous couple.

“Aye, false courage-in his cups certainly. But Lieven is awake on all suits. She told him the Congress of Vienna was giving Hanover to Prussia, and England going along with it for a wedge of Westphalia. You may imagine his reaction-a confirmed Hanoverian. Lovemaking was forgotten. ‘God damn! Does my brother know this?’ says he. She assured him he did not, and he turned the carriage about to go back and tell Prinney the news. Famous it was. Prinney twigs him about it ten times a day. All a hum, of course.”

“I hear Miss Wyckham has given him his congé," she remarked, remembering Dammler’s gossip.

“She’d snap him up fast enough, but the Cabinet won’t hear of it. It’ll be some dull old Austrian princess for him, poor soul. But he’s had the best of Jordan, so he don’t need my pity.”

“Rather pity Mrs. Jordan.”

“Clarence will provide, never fear. He'll come down heavy. Thinks the world of his family-as any man should, of course,” he added hastily. “The least he can do. I have no opinion of men who seduce and abandon, as the saying goes.”

Prudence found the tone of this conversation displeasing and attempted to divert their discussion. “Lord Dammler is writing a new play,” she said as an opener.

“You are pretty thick with Dammler, I believe?”

“We are friends. Both being writers you know…"

“Professional thing, is it? Just a common interest.”

“A little more than that perhaps. We are friends.”

“He ain’t your lover?”

The bluntness of this question shocked her even more than its content. “Mr. Seville! Indeed he is not. The notion is absurd.”

“No offence, Miss Mallow. No offence in the world. But you ain’t seven years old, and his affairs are no secret. He’s not a bit too good for you. Not in the least.”

She was silent a while after this interchange. “Now I’ve gone and hurt your feelings, and that I didn’t mean to do. I would never have suspected it myself, but it’s only what’s being said. Wouldn’t have asked you out if I’d thought it for a minute. Just wanted to be sure. A man can’t be too careful of such details.”

Poor Prudence, reared in a retired village and unused to the ways of high life, took his concern to be for being seen with a lightskirt, when he was only worried that he was stealing Dammler's property. The talk went better after that, and when he deposited her at her door she had concluded that these ton people talked a little warm, but in their hearts they were strict moralists.

She was flattered to receive next day a bouquet from Seville, and not ill-pleased at the note with it requesting her company at the opera two nights hence. She had been there twice with her uncle, but not in a box with the upper members of Society. Her taste of high living had whetted her appetite, and she sent off a note accepting his offer. So this is all there is to it, she thought as she had her hair dressed and the gold gown worn to Mr. Wordsworth’s dinner party slipped over her head. One had only to meet a few of the right people and she was on her way to balls and the opera and drives in the park. She read both the Society column and the Court column to be up on the trivia that passed for conversation with Mr. Seville.

Before she left Uncle Clarence, decked out in garments suitable to escort her, though he was in fact staying home to play piquet with her mama, handed her a black leather box. “I want you to wear my dear late wife’s necklace,” he said.

She accepted with thanks and put it on-a small set of diamonds no bigger than grains of rice, but real diamonds, he assured her. “My, there is nothing like diamonds to make a lady sparkle,” he said, standing back to admire the chips. “Dammler will be sorry he lost you.” There had been a two-day interval since his last visit.

“We are still friends, Uncle. That’s all we ever were.”

“Ho, you are the slyest girl in town,” he ran on. “You think to make him jealous by parading yourself before him with another man. I hope it may turn the trick for you. Seville is well enough, but no title at all. He is just plain Mr. Seville, even if he has the name of a city. It was not named after him, you may be sure. Well, well, you look very nice. You are in looks tonight with Ann’s diamonds.”

“You will have to paint me thus, Uncle,” she teased in a merry mood.

Her amazement was great when he did not concur. “There is no painting a diamond,” he acknowledged sadly. “A pearl now comes out nicely with a dab of white for a highlight, but a diamond cannot be painted. None of the old masters had the knack of it. I’ve tried all their tricks, but a bit of red or blue or green doesn’t begin to do it. I can’t do it, and in short it can’t be done. It only comes out looking like a sapphire or a garnet. Well, water is the same. Water can’t be painted either. Turner thinks to hide his deficiency by always putting what he is painting upside down in the lake as a reflection, but he fools no one. We are all on to him. I’ll just step along to the saloon and meet Mr. Seville. We want him to know you have a family to protect you. A young lady on her own might be taken up as fair game. I shall just mention Sir Alfred and Lord Dammler to let him know we are not quite nobody.” He mentioned them so often that Seville could not but conclude they were indeed acquainted, intimately.

Seville had a box at the opera by the season. It held six seats, but only the two of them were in the party. Prudence had supposed she was only one of his guests; she was surprised to find herself quite alone with him, and worried a little at it; but they were not stared at or scorned, so she thought it must be all right. Several persons acknowledged Seville, and a few nodded and smiled to her.

At intermission she espied Dammler across the auditorium with a large party, one member of which occupied his whole attention. She was a lovely vision in white chiffon and diamonds, with a riot of some unnatural but lovely shade of curls on her head. She wore a very low-cut gown, and she never took her eyes from Dammler for a fraction of a second. They seemed indecently engrossed in each other, unaware that half the crowd was ogling them. Prudence knew from Dammler's conversation that he had a very active social life quite apart from his afternoons with her, but other than Hettie’s ball she had not actually seen him engaged in It. She found it a distressing sight, but such an interesting one that she could not draw her eyes away from his box.

“I see your friend Dammler is here tonight,” Seville remarked, noticing her staring at him.

“Yes. Who is the lady with him, do you know?”

“Some Phyrne or other,” he answered, raising his glass to examine her more closely with a smile of appreciation. Cybele, of course, but it wouldn’t do to let on to Miss Mallow he was interested in the girl.

“Not a maidenhair fern, I take it,” Prudence said, wondering by what adulteration the girl had achieved such a stunning hue to her hair.